The Last Laugh

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1

ITALIAN MUSIC:

WIND BLOWING:

You have some coffee?

Yeah I thought wed just have

a quick bite before we leave,

but this place is so filthy

I dont want to

lay anything down

I brought a little bit

of goodies for us.

for us but my hands

are not that clean

- That's okay

- So if you want the napkin.

- I don't need it.

-

- So use this napkin, okay?

Auschwitz wasn't

cleaner than this!

I knew you'd say that.

Two Jews have been sent

to assassinate Hitler

This is during the war.

They've gotten some

intelligence

as to where Hitler might be

Theyre standing

outside his home

They're hiding, theyre waiting

for Hitler. Eight o'clock comes,

go no Hitler.

An hour goes by,

he's not home yet

Wheres Hitler?

Then another two hours go

by, hes not home yet

Now it's 8:
30 and he

still doesn't show up,

and one Jew turns to

the other and says:

Gee, I hope nothing

happened to him!

So what is this supposed to be?

Crossing lines?

Being in bad taste?

So should I start

the interview with

Heil Hitler! Is that good?

OK. I mean its uhits

part and parcel, its

in keeping, right?

Stalin is nicer, right?

Its easier

But this is the guy who made

me money, so I stick with him.

The thing about

a joke about

the Holocaust,

AIDS, the AIDS crisis,

9/11

it's all about the funny.

It's got to be funny.

You can't tell a

crappy joke

about the biggest tragedy in

the world. You can't do it.

Comedy puts light onto darkness,

and darkness can't live

where there's light.

So that's why it's important to

talk about things

that are taboo, because

otherwise they just

stay in this dark

place and they become

dangerous.

I don't have a

philosophy about it.

I just know that it's much more

fun to laugh than not to laugh.

You have to have a

sense of humor.

If you dont have

a sense of humor,

just go to your grave.

Or get cremated or something.

The Holocaust itself

is not funny.

Theres nothing funny about it.

But

survival,

and what it takes to survive,

there can be humor in that.

One day, the doctor arrives

and who is it, its

Dr. Mengele.

And we have to get undressed,

he's going to check us,

and we were wondering, why

are they checking us?

What is the doctor checking?

I mean that was itself funny.

But I come in front of him

and he

he puts his hand on my shoulder

and he says to me in German,

Genug Speck noch

There is still enough fat.

And then he says to me,

If you survive this war, he

says,

you better have your tonsils

removed,

you have big tonsils.

So, you know, I was

thinking Is he insane?

Tomorrow I may die,

I'm worried about my tonsils?

But when I

came back,

when I survived and came

back, and I thought about

what he said, it was

funny!

I was thinking that

Ill make matzo brei.

How many eggs do you need?

Why dont you get four.

Most people don't expect

survivors to have much humor

after the Holocaust, and that's

really not the case at all.

The survivors

actually have

some of the worst gallows

humor ever.

And I guess that they're the

only ones allowed to do that!

I remember the story

that you told me,

they would make parties

in their head.

There was no food so they would

invent the food in their head

- Oh, we cooked a lot!

- They cooked a lot!

And so, I mean, the absurdity of

some of this stuff is humorous.

So they're making parties

and they're talking about

the recipes for it, andand my

recipe is better than

your recipe

I mean this is an absurdity but

its certainly humorous.

And were you laughing when

you were doing it, at times?

No, we were not laughing, but

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